It's Official: Akhmat MMA/WFCA will merge with ACB

[Noxcho18]

Everyone i know from back home hates this decision, ACB was more loved than WFCA (among the hardcore MMA fans) because ACB was more professional and didn't protect their favorite Berkut fighters, yes i know some think that ACB protected them by shady decisions etc but i disagree. ACB management always tried to be fair, yes there were shady decisions (Vartanyan-Abdulvakhabov) but for some reason nobody talks about when Berkut fighters were robbed (Bataev-Balaev etc).

Anyway, the reason why i and many other Chechens didn't love WFCA was because it always felt like some weird cult. Only Akhmat fighters were praised and favored. Akhmat fighters could have how many corner-men they wanted and they even ran into the opponents corner-men and pushed them away so they could talk with their fighters easily during a fight.

I hope this will not be the case in ACA, ACB did a lot to stop that and keep everything professional.

ACB bought WFCA

Yeah, sure

Did you hear anything about ACA in Poland? they said that their second event will be in Poland, in February.

 

[Noxcho18]

True, would take a lot of pull to separate those two.

Didn't Kadyrov just annex like 10% of Ingushetia? If a situation like that spirals into war then Kadyrov could find himself in a very hot seat that could interfere with his MMA hobby.

There is no "annexation" of Ingushetia and certainly not 10%. It was a deal made by Kadyrov and Yevkurov (Head of Ingushetia) to reinstate the borders that existed from 1992-1999, west of the river Fortanga would be Ingushetia and east Chechnya like it has always been. The Ingush Presidents took the opportunity to take that area when Chechnya was in war in 1999 without their consent. Now in 2018 both Kadyrov and Yevkurov signed a deal that would be extremely beneficial for both republics but of course the media and the opposition (those who took that area without our consent) has to spin it around and make it so Kadyrov wants to conquer Ingushetia.

I know its off-topic to this thread but i had to say something lol. Its mind boggling how one-sided the media is and how it lies about everything.

 

[Koniradi98]

Did you hear anything about ACA in Poland? they said that their second event will be in Poland, in February.

This Interview came up today


There will be 12 ACA events next year, 2 in Poland, 2 in the UK the rest in Russia.
Mariusz Olkiewicz (the interviewer) said that they heard that the polish event will be already in the winter months and that Held probably will be on this card.
Baysangur continued that all polish fighters they have, will be on this card (Omielanczuk,Strus,Saidov etc.) and that they will try to get some new polish names, especially in featherweight and welterweight.
And if I understood it correctly , Baysangur said that he convinced the owners to 2 known polish fighters (?!) that will be making their MMA debut (1 allready sure, they are still waiting for the second one).
The second event in Poland will be in the second half of the year.

The first (?) event will be held in Warsaw, date should be apparently announced next week.

Don't know how serious you can take all this informations, wouldn't be the first time that something baysangur says , doesn't happen.
But when fighters like Held are talking about this,too something should be true.
The date would also make sense since KSW's next event will be in march.
And except the national stadium, there aren't any big arenas in warsaw. So I expect the event to take place in Torwar Arena or something else that type, a moderate sized arena , where also other combat sport federation hold their events.
Even KSW is planning to return there this year.
Seems like ACA learnt from their past mistakes and doesn't goes for the big arenas like they (ACB) did in Gdansk.

And if they really are looking to sign new names, I expect them to sign fighters from Berkut WCA Warsaw, where Baysangur is doing some manager duties I think and where also his brother Hazbi and other chechen fighters are training.
Strus, Blachowicz, Omielanczuk and many other fighters fighting in organizations around the whole world training there, too.

 

[Noxcho18]

This Interview came up today


There will be 12 ACA events next year, 2 in Poland, 2 in the UK the rest in Russia.
Mariusz Olkiewicz (the interviewer) said that they heard that the polish event will be already in the winter months and that Held probably will be on this card.
Baysangur continued that all polish fighters they have, will be on this card (Omielanczuk,Strus,Saidov etc.) and that they will try to get some new polish names, especially in featherweight and welterweight.
And if I understood it correctly , Baysangur said that he convinced the owners to 2 known polish fighters (?!) that will be making their MMA debut (1 allready sure, they are still waiting for the second one).
The second event in Poland will be in the second half of the year.

The first (?) event will be held in Warsaw, date should be apparently announced next week.

Don't know how serious you can take all this informations, wouldn't be the first time that something baysangur says , doesn't happen.
But when fighters like Held are talking about this,too something should be true.
The date would also make sense since KSW's next event will be in march.
And except the national stadium, there aren't any big arenas in warsaw. So I expect the event to take place in Torwar Arena or something else that type, a moderate sized arena , where also other combat sport federation hold their events.
Even KSW is planning to return there this year.
Seems like ACA learnt from their past mistakes and doesn't goes for the big arenas like they (ACB) did in Gdansk.

And if they really are looking to sign new names, I expect them to sign fighters from Berkut WCA Warsaw, where Baysangur is doing some manager duties I think and where also his brother Hazbi and other chechen fighters are training.
Strus, Blachowicz, Omielanczuk and many other fighters fighting in organizations around the whole world training there, too.

Interesting, ACB did invest a lot into Poland and they promised events there all the time, most of which didn't happen. I also dont trust Edelbiev that much, it seems that he is too optimistic. If they do manage to hold an event in Poland then it will be a good one since ACB has a good Polish roster. Are there any rumors to who those 2 fighters are? i assume one of them is a Boxer since i remember seeing a picture of a famous Polish boxer (dont remember the name) training in WCA or Arrachion.

 

[europe1]

yes there were shady decisions (Vartanyan-Abdulvakhabov) but for some reason nobody talks about when Berkut fighters were robbed (Bataev-Balaev etc).

I think the key-factor to consider in such examples is that MMA judging just sucks across the board. Lord knows there are many decisions even worse than Vartanyan-AAA in pretty much any MMA organization. The most likely explanation just seems to be that ACB judges are as inept as the rest of them.

Wait... Balaev-Bataev was a robbery? Man, my memory must be playing tricks on me or something.

ACB management always tried to be fair

Ehm... guess that depends on how much you buy what Georgi is spouting. (though to be fair it's Georgi). Still nowhere near the level of WFCA though, obviously.

because it always felt like some weird cult

lol. It's like the North Korea of MMA promotions.

There is no "annexation" of Ingushetia and certainly not 10%. It was a deal made by Kadyrov and Yevkurov (Head of Ingushetia) to reinstate the borders that existed from 1992-1999, west of the river Fortanga would be Ingushetia and east Chechnya like it has always been. The Ingush Presidents took the opportunity to take that area when Chechnya was in war in 1999 without their consent. Now in 2018 both Kadyrov and Yevkurov signed a deal that would be extremely beneficial for both republics but of course the media and the opposition (those who took that area without our consent) has to spin it around and make it so Kadyrov wants to conquer Ingushetia.

I know its off-topic to this thread but i had to say something lol. Its mind boggling how one-sided the media is and how it lies about everything.

Ah, I had only heard about the big protests in Ingushetia. Didn't really know much more about it than that.

 

[Koniradi98]

. Are there any rumors to who those 2 fighters are? i assume one of them is a Boxer since i remember seeing a picture of a famous Polish boxer (dont remember the name) training in WCA or Arrachion.

I have no Idea.

There are a lot of top boxers (Artur Szpilka, Izu Ugonoh,Maciej Sulecki, Mateusz Maternak for some time) training in WCA, too. Well, at least until now , their trainer Andrzej Gmitruk died 2 weeks ago.
But I can't imagine one of them doing a transition to MMA, Ugonoh has a fight lined up , Sulecki has no need for such a transition. Maybe Artur Szpilka ,he was once in talks with KSW but decided to continue with boxing .Now his trainer is gone there might be a possibility but I think he would rather go to KSW since he seems to have quite good relations with Martin Lewandowski

Apperantly Radoslaw Paczuski a Kickboxer and MW champ in FEN (Nr. 2 Organization Poland that have both, Kickboxing and MMA) is planning to do a transition to MMA but I wouldn't say that he is that popular in Poland, at least not popular enough that ACA would be interested and I would assume that if he really is making a MMA debut, it would rather be in FEN itself. But on the other hand baysangur also said that it's not a "lighter nor a heavier guy" , so you never know.

 

[Noxcho18]

I think the key-factor to consider in such examples is that MMA judging just sucks across the board. Lord knows there are many decisions even worse than Vartanyan-AAA in pretty much any MMA organization. The most likely explanation just seems to be that ACB judges are as inept as the rest of them.

Wait... Balaev-Bataev was a robbery? Man, my memory must be playing tricks on me or something.






Ehm... guess that depends on how much you buy what Georgi is spouting. (though to be fair it's Georgi). Still nowhere near the level of WFCA though, obviously.



lol. It's like the North Korea of MMA promotions.



Ah, I had only heard about the big protests in Ingushetia. Didn't really know much more about it than that.

Balaev-Bataev was a much closer fight that Vartanyan-AAA so its understandable that people scored it differently. I personally gave Bataev 3 rounds since i felt he did more in the fight, the only thing Balaev did in that fight was getting a takedown (landed one good shot too) which he didnt do anything with, he just held Bataev down, didnt GnP or try to advance that much. I was even surprised that John McCarthy didn't stand them up. I am not the only one who saw it that way since Frank Mir mentions it all the time when talking about Bataev, that he won etc. There were several other fights were Berkut fighters lost controversially.

The situation with Giorgi-Nagibin is weird, i looked back at the fight and sometimes it does look like Giorgi faked the injury but it does not excuse Nagibins dumb act. I think ACB fired him because he allegedly talked about Nagibins mother.

ACB got a lot of criticism that they overturned fights but they always only mentioned Agujev-Kincl and Nikaev fight(which were controversial). Those are IIRC the only fights that were in favor of Berkut. There has been many other overturned fights that were either robberies or dumb stoppages like Nakajima-Khamzaev, Raisov-Bobner etc. The owner of ACB said he would stop overturning fights but yet when some dumb stoppage or decision happened everyone blamed it on him. I cant recall any unfair decision or stoppage that didn't go unnoticed by ACB before Khasiev said he would stop overturning. In fact thats why many liked ACB because it tried to be fair to everyone when Russia was full of promotions that only favored their stars.

 

[europe1]

The owner of ACB said he would stop overturning fights but yet when some dumb stoppage or decision happened everyone blamed it on him. I cant recall any unfair decision or stoppage that didn't go unnoticed by ACB before Khasiev said he would stop overturning. In fact thats why many liked ACB because it tried to be fair to everyone when Russia was full of promotions that only favored their stars.

I can kind of agree on him stopping to overturn decisions. It potentially could just cause much controversy about what constitutes an "unfair stoppage&decision" or not.

The situation with Giorgi-Nagibin is weird, i looked back at the fight and sometimes it does look like Giorgi faked the injury but it does not excuse Nagibins dumb act. I think ACB fired him because he allegedly talked about Nagibins mother.

I was thinking more about what Georgi said after the fight concerning ACB.

Summary

* He said that they held back his win-bonus (ie: knowing from the get-go that their commission was going to NC him)

* Claims that Yaragi Gitaev and other ACB officials confronted him in the hotel to insult and belittle him

* Says that he never said anything about Nagibins mother (thinks it was something ACB mentioned to Nagibin so to make him angrier)

* Says that even though he was fired for his shit-talking -- ACB officials told him to keep it up and intensify it since their fight got a lot of traction, making them hypocrites.

Not saying I believe all of this (that last remark seems the most probable). But it is interesting.

 

[Noxcho18]

I can kind of agree on him stopping to overturn decisions. It potentially could just cause much controversy about what constitutes an "unfair stoppage&decision" or not.



I was thinking more about what Georgi said after the fight concerning ACB.

Summary

* He said that they held back his win-bonus (ie: knowing from the get-go that their commission was going to NC him)

* Claims that Yaragi Gitaev and other ACB officials confronted him in the hotel to insult and belittle him

* Says that he never said anything about Nagibins mother (thinks it was something ACB mentioned to Nagibin so to make him angrier)

* Says that even though he was fired for his shit-talking -- ACB officials told him to keep it up and intensify it since their fight got a lot of traction, making them hypocrites.

Not saying I believe all of this (that last remark seems the most probable). But it is interesting.

I preferred it when ACB overturned the really controversial fights, like Nakajima-Khamzaev. Nakajima landed a good body shot on Khamzaev but the ref thought it was a groin shot and let him recover. Khamzaev would later win the fight by a UD, after the fight the ACB management looked at the fight again and after a day they changed the result to a KO win for Nakajima. They could have let it slide since Khamzaev is a Berkut fighter and a trainer for many of the clubs fighters but they didn't.

This was more at a time when ACB only employed Russian refs (which are mostly horrible) and so i agreed with many of the decisions that were overturned. Then ACB tried to make it even more professional hired foreign refs like the one from UK and Poland. The one from the UK only reffed 2-3 events i think and one of them had 2 bad stoppages, the worst one was Ilya Schlegov-Carvalho which might be one of the worst stoppages i have ever seen. The second one was a title fight in which a Berkut fighter (Saidov) lost the fight due to the ref stopping the fight early. None of the results were overturned because ACB had employed more professional team so they didn't have to do it.

The "ACB protects fighters by overturning fights" controversy came after ACB 52 which was the UK ref teams second event. They again had a bad stoppage in Agujev-Kincl and that was when ACB announced that they wont work with them and that they will overturn that fight. I dont remember any fight that was overturned wrongly but thats just my opinion.

We cant really know what Giorgi said, according to Nagibin it was about his mother and Giorgi was egging him on. It seems weird that ACB would encourage Giorgi to shit-talk and then firing him for doing just that. Giorgi was one of the best signings ACB had and they had several Videoblogs with him.

 

[europe1]

I preferred it when ACB overturned the really controversial fights, like Nakajima-Khamzaev. Nakajima landed a good body shot on Khamzaev but the ref thought it was a groin shot and let him recover. Khamzaev would later win the fight by a UD, after the fight the ACB management looked at the fight again and after a day they changed the result to a KO win for Nakajima. They could have let it slide since Khamzaev is a Berkut fighter and a trainer for many of the clubs fighters but they didn't.

This was more at a time when ACB only employed Russian refs (which are mostly horrible) and so i agreed with many of the decisions that were overturned. Then ACB tried to make it even more professional hired foreign refs like the one from UK and Poland. The one from the UK only reffed 2-3 events i think and one of them had 2 bad stoppages, the worst one was Ilya Schlegov-Carvalho which might be one of the worst stoppages i have ever seen. The second one was a title fight in which a Berkut fighter (Saidov) lost the fight due to the ref stopping the fight early. None of the results were overturned because ACB had employed more professional team so they didn't have to do it.

I suppose the optimal solution would be for them to have an Independent MMA Commission to make the rulings concerning such controversies. The Swedish Budo Association has been quite diligent about that in their jurisdiction. They overturned decisions like Yosef Ali Mohammed vs Viktor Pesta or Nico Musoke vs Mickael Lebout, for example.

But, you know, Russia... so it wouldn't work. Hell, even the American Commissions refuse to dispute almost anything that comes on their table.

 

[fermaPY]

I`m going to miss #RIPACB
Hopefully they are going to be on YT....

 

[CDF47]

Rather than try to replace Bellator as a number 2 promotion, I would rather see them work with Bellator and RIZIN and be like the other orgs. that work with each other.

 

[europe1]

Fan Theory: Khasiev is "officially" in charge of ACA since Kadyrov is under US-sanctions and would, therefore, have trouble doing much international business -- especially with US-based entities?

 

[executionermma]

Rather than try to replace Bellator as a number 2 promotion, I would rather see them work with Bellator and RIZIN and be like the other orgs. that work with each other.

By "replace Bellator" they mean roster talent wise, they want to be nº 2, that's their goal for now.
Their main market isn't the same as Bellator's so there's no direct competition, they won't be trying to get Bellator out of the business.

 

[CDF47]

By "replace Bellator" they mean roster talent wise, they want to be nº 2, that's their goal for now.
Their main market isn't the same as Bellator's so there's no direct competition, they won't be trying to get Bellator out of the business.

Oh, that's great to hear and a really good goal for them to have. I hope they do work with RIZIN and Bellator though. That would be a great partnership.

 

[qw3rty]

When they will hold the first event as ACA?

 

[Kaybee]

I will always refer to this new promotion from now on as Obamacare FC

 

[Koniradi98]

When they will hold the first event as ACA?

Thought that they would restart as a new organization from ACA 1 but they seem just to continue as ACB with a new name.

Btw. Also interesting that their website has also a polish option besides russian and english.
Seems like they really have some plans for the polish market.

 

[Koniradi98]

According to a journalist called Azamat Bostanov , Held is fighting Abdulvakhabov on 15 february in Warsaw.